Although the argument that comprehension is a cognitive process is extremely convincing, the fact that comprehension can be assessed only through some sort of interaction makes this view inadequate as a base for reading/literature curricula. Questions, context, and teacher-student interaction can all influence a student's comprehension. It is also…

Within the framework of a general model of communication, a model of language communication has been developed and applied to the perception of cohesion. To measure students' perception of textual cohesion, a pilot study in the United Kingdom built "noise" into texts by deleting parts of each texts. Subjects, 59 nonremedial students whose first…

Semantically congruous and incongruous sentences that varied in their syntactic complexity served as the contextual material in a study investigating the use of contextual cues in ongoing word recognition. The dependent variable was the time necessary to name target words that were preceded by the various context conditions. Subjects were 24…

A variety of techniques for improving readers' analysis-by-synthesis abilities (rapid, efficient reading typical of highly skilled readers) are presented in this paper. The techniques discussed in the first part emphasize improving reading comprehension and include the following: (1) modifications of the cloze procedure (encouraging readers to use…

A study was conducted to determine the relationship between processing load and ability to locate text segments containing intersentence contradictions. It was hypothesized that less able readers fail to exhibit comprehension monitoring skills because most tasks overload their processing capacity. Subjects were 87 fourth and sixth grade students…

Children's well-developed oral language skills obviously facilitate their reading and learning to read. In contrast to a traditional position which contends that reading comprehension equals oral comprehension skills plus decoding, this paper claims that a child must learn (and, perhaps, unlearn) many more skills in the transition from oral…

A framework for a comprehensive theory of reading is presented in this paper. The framework consists of perceptual, semantic, and control systems. The perceptual and semantic spaces of the theory should not be confused with the terms "decoding" and "comprehension"; decoding and comprehension refer to ways in which those spaces…

A random sample and a sample of retarded readers were selected from fourth- and sixth-grade students in the Grand Prairie Independent School District. All students were tested in the areas of auditory perception, visual perception, and phonics abilities. The tests administered were: two subtests from the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test; four…

A study investigated the process of information extraction in reading in order to determine whether language constraints in texts reduced the amount of visual detail noticed by the reader during the reading of specific words. A detailed examination was made of 20 college students' eye movement patterns as they read a group of selected passages.…

A comparative analysis of the oral reading miscues of 20 average and above-average readers entering sixth grade was made in relation to syntax, semantics, and patterns of comprehension and grammatical relationships. Miscues generated while reading passages in science, social studies, mathematics, and literature were analyzed, and the relationship…

New miscue analysis, which combines characteristics of cloze procedure with traditional miscue analysis, seems to overcome some of the limitations encountered in the traditional method. In new miscue analysis, subjects read selections below and at their level of reading ability and are not agitated by being asked to read material that is too…

A project was organized to understand and identify basic variations in reading ability by its information processing components. Focusing on three major processing levels in reading--word analysis, discourse analysis, and integration of word/discourse analysis--preliminary research identified perceptual and cognitive skill components of reading…

A modified cloze procedure was used in two studies designed to gain insight into the silent reading process. In the first, involving a small group of third- and fourth-grade children, several stories were prepared based on the assumption that the cloze procedure might be manipulated to reveal a reader's use of semantic, syntactic, and graphophonic…

To develop a theoretical model of the reading process of the deaf, a study was devised that tested the viability of the Goodman reading model applied to sign language and evaluated a variety of comprehension-assessing techniques to identify those that provide the most information about a deaf reader's comprehension. For the study, four deaf…

This paper suggests that by emphasizing word identification skills and oral reading and by using limited reading materials, teachers have neglected reading for meaning. Following a review of current instructional practices, the paper explains how understanding writing depends on the world experience, language knowledge, and processing strategies…